


Happy Huntadays

by IntelligentShipper



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 14.08, 14.09, Canon Divergent, Christmas, Fairies, Found Family, Gen, Holidays, Santa dies, but some hints i guess, but you can probably read past it, canon-typical deancas, destiel if you squint i guess, i don't really do fanfiction usually, idk how to tag this, idk what would you tag the show, indirect gore, indirect violence, mostly bad jokes, side mary/bobby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 13:39:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17142764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntelligentShipper/pseuds/IntelligentShipper
Summary: Sam & Dean have built a pretty strong family over time, but who they are together will never fade. The Winchesters explore a few cases, tunnels of sewers and malls and their inner psyche, and remember that they've almost missed Christmas. With young Jack Kline in the picture, that isn't really an option for them. Takes place roughly between 14.08 and 14.09





	Happy Huntadays

**Author's Note:**

> Premise:  
> Between 14.8 and 14.9: the bunker, overloaded with survivors and hunters -- some close to the Winchesters and others simply pulling work -- needed other solutions not long after the near-loss of Jack. With the mini-bunker chapter house discovered in season 13, the Winchesters recently began to uncover other chapter house locations from the archives. With Sam's systems coming online, and the other bunkers available, Dean's discomfort at the bunker's crowdedness hadn't been missed by Sam and Castiel. The objective, in this winter season, is to locate more to begin spacing out tolerable living spaces, increase hunter coverage across the nation, and more.

**December 20th**

"And you're sure it's in Roswell?" Dean didn't sound entirely convinced, even if they were already running a steady seventy-five down highway 54, "That seems kind of on-the-nose, don't you think?"

"Yeah." For the first time in a long time, Sam had taken to breaking out a pile of paper maps on his lap to sort his thoughts over, rather than a clutter of electronics, "Well I mean no, but probably, yeah." He didn't have to look at Dean to detect his fierce case of side-eye and sighed, "Look, when the Men of Letters got thrashed by Abaddon they didn't exactly have fax machines to send rapid fire updates, but," Sam leafed through old archive maps compared to modern paper, "It looks like they were setting their eyes on -- well, an old base around Roswell."

"Area 51." It wasn't news to Dean, but he acted like it was every time, "Like with aliens."

"Area 51 is in Nevada, Dean." He rolled his eyes. "That was the alien crash site."

"Okay then, Area 52. So what, Roswell is built on top of Area 52 now?" Dean broke his eyes from the road to try to gloss some idea of what Sam was looking at from the map, but by then, Sam had deferred to his phone. 

"Part of it. Looks like it's mostly a prison, a college and a corner of an industrial district. Part of an airport." Sam paused, "Who builds a college right next to a prison?"

"A really fun town." Dean didn't detect the laughter he intended to draw with that, glancing back to a bemused younger brother. "Okay, okay. So what, we believe there really was an alien crash?"

"I mean, it could be anything else. Remember that time with the faeries?" Sam smirked.

"Yeah, big load of help you were." Dean opted to get back on-track, "But I mean, they must have thought something was there, complete with some kind of place to build a base. So, do you know where the underground ops were, beyond 'some part of town'?"

"Honestly?" Sam grimaced, "Not really. I mean, it was a classified base, Dean. The Men of Letters seemed to take some pretty educated guesses though, so it's either under the prison or under this section of warehouses. Probably." Sam had chosen to zoom in on a nearby industrial district. 

"Okay, so," Dean reviewed, patting on the wheel, "Maybe an alien crashes in what, the fourties?"

"Forty-seven,"

"And the men of letters were setting up -- what was it Cas called it --"

"A geomantic circuit. He just put the Aquarian Star on the map with some global curve, and it hasn't lead us wrong. Portsmouth is right on a mark. So is this. So was Portland when Jody and Maggie went to look."

"Yeah, yeah -- and Yellowstone, I got it." A crooked smirk stole its way over Dean's face, "Kind of funny they just found one of Colt's hidey holes and left it alone lanterns and all." But before Sam could do much more than nod, Dean rolled on, "--so they find somewhere on the magic star-map , and what... they closed up shop?"

"Yeah, something like a bunch of military crashes out there until the early 50s."

"So by the time they might have been staking it out to set up shop--"

"They went under, too." Sam finalized. "But for all intents and purposes... aliens haven't panned out as real for us yet."

"Yeah, and a weather balloon sounds like a bad excuse we'd make."

"Fair." Sam answered simply. "So there might be something there. Last time aliens popped up it was fairies. We load up with silver and check it out. See what it takes to get downstairs."

"Hopefully without meeting Bubba."

\--------

The brothers rolled into southwest Roswell late at night. Their search found nothing of particular import at a glance. Dean, vocal in his desire to avoid checking the deep bowels of Alien-Center Prison, had herded them towards scouring built up warehouse zones largely vacant at that hour. Aside from dodging the occasional security camera, the stroll was uneventful enough for Sam to look across from the pile of palates that divided him from Dean, "So I'm curious. Once we actually have enough space to move everybody out, what's your plan?"

"I dunno," Dean kicked a wear ring pile in general frustration at the lack of results, "Go back to normal, I guess."

"Dean, normal for us is chasing every case across the map."

"Yeah, and?" Dean looked up, defensive.

"And I mean, we don't need to do that anymore. Look, between Portsmouth, Portland, Jody's place, whatever we find here -- we have like... pretty much the whole map covered with hunters. Safe, well-armed hunters that can all coordinate."

Dean quieted. 

"I'm just saying." Sam tried again, "You've been talking about taking a chance to breathe for a few years now. Once everybody's up and running--"

"Stop." Dean injected bluntly.

"-Dean,"

"No, Sam," He stepped forward and nodded, "check it out." 

Sam huffed out brief frustration, only to turn and look at a titanic drainage grate in a slough of the backlot, dripping away whatever trickled from the nearest shop and a pile of barrels near it. "What about it?"

Dean flat-faced, souring briefly in his direction, "We're looking to go down right? Somewhere down that matters and a lot of things could have passed through. Think this is a clue, Scooby-Doo?" And with that, Dean took off toward the grate, briefly shining his light into it. It made for a long drop below, and released a terrible enough scent that made both brothers curl their lips in disgust.

"That's awful."

"It's like a mix of oil and ass."

"Might actually be." Sam conceded. "But I mean, math." They had to go down and saw no other avenue to do so.

They both stopped in place for several long, enduring seconds before Dean piped up, "Where's Cas when you need him?"

"What, you just want to call an angel to shove him in a filthy manhole?"

Another long, long pause ate away at them as he felt death in Dean's eyes.

"That came out wrong." Sam admitted gravely. "Okay, fine." He conceded, squatting down to hoist the grate, voice straining through lifting the weight enough to be challenged by the grinding metallic noise, "I'm going first," he clanged with punctuation of it clanging off to the side, while he remained on a knee, "but only because you're afraid of tunnels."

"What?" Dean challenged back, face twisted in confusion and wounded pride, "I'm not afraid of tunnels."

"Fine," Sam shined the light down, "You first."

Dean verbally staggered. "...No, _you_ first."

Fatigue knit itself in a taut expression of frustration towards his older brother, but Sam pocketed his flashlight, turned, and used the access ladder to descend several feet into the dark while shining his light into the muck-and-tunnels below before deciding to perform a solid drop into the basement. He looked back up, "Told you. Afraid of tunnels." And with that, he disappeared from view, with only the roam of his flashlight to detect him by.

Dean debated with himself, the tight space, and his pride before deciding to work his way down shortly after his brother, who swiveled the light back around from several yards down the wide underground corridor, "Took you long enough."

Dean took his belated moment to light their surroundings; a plethora of overhead pipes in various states of disrespair, a low deposit flow between cement platforms that sidled it, the occasional bridge or side corridor down the access. "Seems a little low-brow for Men of Letters, doesn't it?"

"I mean, if this was always an actual drainage zone, sure. Or if they had plans to convert it differently. Remember what you and Cas found in Cincinatti?" Sam called back to a previous buddy-duo case of similar objective by the same map, exploring the unfinished Cincinatti subway tunnels and finding not only the city's converted bomb shelter in it but a small, cloistered Letterman access beneath it with many of the trappings of their war room. 

"Yeah," Dean muttered knowingly, "So I guess first thing is figuring out what's deep enough in that nobody's bothered it."

"Sounds familiar."

"What?"

"Noth-" Sam's glance back resulted in an unceremoneous slide, skidding through residual muck built up on the walkway and finding himself planted on his rump. He lifted gunk-covered hands, "Eugh-" He stood, fully taking in Dean's look of smug enjoyment while he tried to find somewhere clean enough to dust his hands free of potential biohazard, "I probably deserved that."

"You totally deserved that."

Ever since picking up the potential for other locations and housing, Dean had been on the hard grind to find them. Each still took work to refurbish; not all had been fully equipped with generators and the full scale systems of Lebanon's bunker by the time the Men of Letters were demolished, but it was a distant future they both entertained, even if neither were entirely sure of what really waited for them once the task was finished.

A pleasant stroll through unofficial drainage sewers was an unusual break for them. While the boys never truly let their guards down, they weren't on the immediate hunt for any monsters. Just clues and side tunnels, while navigating the sty of their own tangled thoughts.

"Look, Dean. I know you want home cleared out for real, okay?" He stopped as they recognized a dead-end waiting ahead for them in their current tunnel. "And we're almost there. Jody just moved out like, five people to Portland, okay? Cincinatti just went online and took five more that way. And the traps - we can work that out as a team. It's not that bad."

"Not that bad, man? Home turned into Grand Central Station."

"Yeah, I get it." Sam tried to disarm Dean's defensive tone with his own calmer one. "But it's not all bad. Hell, Charlie's almost acting like... Charlie."

"But she's not our Charlie." Dean asserted brusquely, almost combative.

"Then make memories with this Charlie, Dean. Give them time out to be people. They had lives before everything went to apocalypse for them ten years ago, too." Sam watched Dean quiet, and reached out, "Look, last I knew, Maggie was going on about a chance to do Christmas. She was probably like, ten or something when she had her last Christmas, Dean."

"Oh, shit, that's right. It's almost Christmas."

"Did you like, not notice the snowflakes on all the roads?"

"Shut up, they put those up after the fourth of July." Dean defended, transitioning to muttering, "Probably has Cas and Jack so high on sugar cookies they're tasting colors right now." Dean stopped, feeling Sam's enduring prying eyes. He didn't have to speak his concerns for Dean to understand them. After all, Dean had always been the one to love holidays. "Look, man. Maggie's... a good kid. Mom, and... Bobby, they're off being happy. Everyone's finding their new nests. And I mean, look at you." Dean took to walking again, even if towards the inevitable dead end. It felt appropriate, somehow, and he simply needed to move. "I was gone. Poof. I don't just need to take care of my little brother anymore. You don't need me to."

"-Dean,"

Dean stopped, turning to face him with a brief look of pride, however shallow, "And that's okay, man. Should have been like that a long time ago. And you built all this great stuff, Chief. But I mean... what's normal anymore? Putting on pantsuits and pretending we're Men of Letters now?"

"Or, you know, taking a break." Sam tried again. "I'm not saying hang it up forever, or get another white picket fence and and a dog or... whatever. Just... take a chance to realize you don't have to do everything yourself now, Dean."

"You know, it's funny." Dean admitted while swiveling his flashlight across the walls, finding something to avert his eyes towards, "I've been saying that, but I guess now that it's here, it's like 'what then?' Maybe because there's always been a something-next."

"Yeah." Sam had all but abandoned the idea of looking for any immediate clues in their walled off hall end, focusing entirely on his brother. "Look, it'll be pretty quiet when we go back. Just take some time to think about it. Maybe watch the ball drop on New Years or something. I don't know."

"You're saying I should make a resolution?"

Sam shrugged.

Dean stared back down his flashlight lane, but stopped. "Wait a second." 

"What?" Sam followed the light down to the water line.

"Does anything seem weird to you?"

Sam took a moment to inspect, "It's pushing out." He looked to the wall, then away down the lane, with no evident piping at the end of the line to account for it, as much as a few remaining on the upper walls and hugging the corners before bending down the lane. "And it's cleaner."

"Yeah, stank's gone. Mostly." Dean considered the lack of mortar between the bricks. "How much do you want to bet if we pull these out, we find a door?"

\----------

A heavy steel door squealed open, entering into a steel-walled foyer with multiple metallic accesses. Machinery and lighting, currently offline, dappled the walls -- a familiar look more by era than design as when their flashlights first swept over the Lebanon bunker. 

"If I see an alien, I scream," Dean joked in passing while pacing carefully through strangely clean halls. Mild dust had settled, but the facility had remained largely sterile due to its sealing. 

A few navigated corridors later, Dean arm-slapped at Sam, "Dude, check it out." Some strange relic hung in broken fragments that almost looked mechanical on the other side of thick, cracked, protective glass. "Awesome."

"Dean, we don't even know what it was for." 

"What if it's actually aliens?" A brief spark manifested in Dean, causing a crooked smirk out of Sam.

"What, you believe in aliens, now?"

"Pretty sure there's nothing I can rule out at this point."

They continued onward, migrating into a room flush-full of filing cabinets. Many were emptied, but a few weighty drawers were worth rolling out. Sam found himself filing through old records, "That's weird, why would anyone have left things like this?" He held up a manila envelope, "These are government files, Dean, and they're just... sitting here."

Dean took a moment to look around, "Like they took anything they could and got out." He admitted, lowering his eyes back to his brother and spotting a small sphere hovering behind him. "Dude- don't move."

Sam reflexively looked behind him, seeming to see nothing. Dean, on the other hand, saw the small sphere land on his brother's shoulder. He looked right through it once he looked back, "What?"

"I don't know how to tell you this, but there's a fairy on your shoulder."

Sam looked across to his opposite shoulder. Dean watched the ball of light zip off into the filing cabinets.

"It's right there!"

"Oh, right, you can see-" Out flew a filing cabinet drawer, gonging off the taller brother's head and staggering him. "oW?!" he sounded as confused as he was hurt, hand to the side of his lightly bloodied ear. 

Several more spheres came to Dean's line of vision, quickly swerving. Despite a hand to his holster, he knew shooting the bouncing balls wasn't going to prove very effective. "Sammy, we've got a problem."

"I figured that. How many?" 

"Five, I think." And as if on cue, five filing cabinets went tumbling over loudly. The percussion resonated through the entire facility.

Dean heard flickering. Lots of it. The lights, long disabled, decided to begin to flicker and crackle to life of their own accord.

"Oh that's bad."

"You think?"

A side, metallic doorway burst down in a terrible bluster. To Dean's vision, there was an onslaught of innumerable light spheres coming in with a wave of interest, sealed in half a century of boredom. "Sammy, time to go!" Ripping his brother by the shirt, they took off down the halls. 

Some seemed to shuttle more quickly than others, knocking down former display pillars and anything not bolted down as the boys skidded the few chambers back. "Can't you shoot them?"

"OKAY, THERE WERE _A LOT MORE THAN FIVE._ " He yelled over a screaming chorus of giggling and their own footsteps, strobe-like lights searing down the halls after them vividly enough to paint the world in contrasted light-and-darkness.

"Fairies have to count, right?!"

"What?" It was hard to tell if Dean just hadn't heard clearly over surrounding or if he was flatly confused at the question.

All became clear as Sam turned, unloading a cluster of bullets rapidly at one of the glass display windows that had enraptured Dean. With an entire clustered round unleashed, the window first spit crystal chips and, soon, shattered out its immediate area.

The chaos stopped so abruptly that Dean almost stopped, swerving to look back. He had enough sense to realize his feet should stay in motion, crediting a "good thinking," as giggles were briefly left behind.

Tearing towards the entrance, they observed the threshold on the way out, "It's iron." That's all the time they took to marvel at it, closing and sealing the door behind them and going so far as to lean against it while catching their breath. 

"Fairies." They each acknowledged in turn.

\----------

**December 21st**

"I mean, it makes sense." Sam admitted on their way back from lighting the burden of silver from a local pawn shop's drawers on the way to the nearest one-star motel to try to haggle out a 3-AM check-in, "Common enough to build things, and whatever went in couldn't get back out."

"Yeah, so we have a hoard of pissed off fairies that scared off the government."

They checked in, moved in, and settled around a table with a bag of tools while preparing to part together a few small frag grenades.

"I'm never going to live this down if Cas hears about it." Dean gruffed.

"What?"

"Oh," Dean snorted, "Remember that case out near Omaha a few months ago? Guy said he thought he saw the tin man smashing in a vic's house?"

"Yeah. You and Cas went to handle it."

"Yeah. And Maggie had been reading in the bunker about fairies and Oz and got it stuck in her head that it was a fairy coming through people's toilets for a whirlpool."

"...And she got it stuck in his head." Sam obliged.

"Yeah. And nowwww we found the toilet fairies." Dean resumed work.

Sam quietly chuckled it away. "What did it turn out to be, again?"

"I dunno, pissed off spirit stuck in the local power grid basically. The Neverland stuff was totally circumstance."

The two spent their share of time quietly assembling parts and stripping wires before Sam spoke up, "So... have you de-Grinched about Christmas yet?"

Dean stopped. Their eyes thoughtfully paired before the older brother cracked. "Look. Whatever Maggie hasn't already conned Cas and Jack into doing back home, we'll work on when we get there, okay?" 

Sam smiled. "And after that?"

"What do you mean 'after that'?"

"Well, like you said, New Years."

"We aren't really guys to be making resolutions."

"Why not? Like you said. We don't have to do it all ourselves anymore, Dean. You wanted to go to the beach before or... whatever. We could do that."

"Yeah, well, short of heading to Honolulu it's not really a good time for that and I'm not climbing on a plane."

Sam snorted.

Dean paused, tilted his head and considered. "I guess if I could do anything -- like, anything -- I'd actually say a house."

Sam sounded as surprised as he looked. "A house?"

"Yeah, I mean. Maybe not for all the time. We're still a bunch of paranoid old bastards, but if we can get this mess cleaned up wouldn't it be nice to have a place with like... windows?" He grinned aside at the motel's cheap divider, "Like, ones that aren't smoky and tinted. Waking up to the sun instead of-"

"-Instead of living like grumpy old bears in a cave? Yeah, I could see that, even if it's just vacations, or whatever." Sam took a moment to look his brother over and nodded. "Guess a few brass window rods, some goofer dusted thresholds and a few devil's traps with some chosen wood for renovation and you could even like... relax there." He tried a wry smile. "Alright, well. Maybe make that your resolution."

"Come onnn, Sam," Dean dismissed.

Sam set down his finalized rig. "No, really. I'm not saying to pack it in and get married -- even if you basically already are,"

"-What's that supposed to mean?"

Sam folded his arms and shrugged. "I'm just saying you have a few things to work out. Kind of like mom and Bobby, that's all."

Dean retired his finished product, having already been poking at it beyond-need for an excuse to fiddle. "Yeah. Well. I have no idea what you're talking about." He rose to stand, "But let's go blow up some fairies, get your dirty ass a shower before you funk up the car any worse, and get back home."

\----

A few well-placed mines, rabble-rousing to cause the fairy onslaught and one door-duck later, a few noisy explosions rattled the underground of Roswell while the brothers pressed against the door. If nothing else, kicking adrenaline had ignited something in Dean that the more introspective conversation failed to inspire, and with a nod of achievement and a quick sweep, he had only one thought to pass on before they left Roswell, "I'm kind of sad it wasn't aliens."

Dean would be smug about Sam's returning dour expression half the ride home.

\----

Pulling into the bunker by way of the garage, they entered to low key music in the air, the smell of something burning in the kitchen, and a bit of life from a few spare hands that hadn't been able to move on to another location yet bustling around in the war room. 

Dean stopped in the archway to watch a few near-strangers climbing a ladder to try to help balance the tip of the tree, very clearly a ponderosa pine claimed from nearby, "Aw, man, don't- don't do that. It's like the Goliath verison of the Charlie Brown tree." Everyone stopped and looked almost embarrassed.

Sam shot a side eye to him as if to chide, but Dean kept rolling, "Look, okay? Chill. We'll go get ourselves a real tree and some lights and whatever you guys want to try to do the next few days, okay?"

He almost hadn't noticed Maggie nearly running into them while tearing out of the kitchen, "I'm sorry, I got distracted! But good, you're home! How did it go?" 

Her energy and innocence were among her finest traits and, though Dean might not have had the time to get to know her as he had his closest family, he couldn't help but manage a crooked smile. "It worked fine, kid. What's burning?"

"Uuuuh nevermind that."

"Oookay." He looked over the room as people climbed down to figure out what to do about the tree. "Where's Cas? And Jack?"

"Oh, uhhh. It was snowing outside. So Cas took him outside to play."

That, more than anything, hit Dean like an entire sack of bricks. "Kid's never seen snow." he realized.

"Alright everybody!" Sam declared loudly, turning several heads. "So here's the deal. Roswell New Mexico is clear for use. Kind of gross to get to, but secure as it gets. Generators work and it just needs a bit of settling. So most of you? Are probably gonna be there soon."

Dean took a moment to pause, looking over his brother and then the paused sense of energy in the room. "...After Christmas. It's probably been about ten years since you could be bothered. Now we might be new to each other but if Bobby taught me nothing else it's that hunters are family. And you've all earned those badges. So what I want everybody to do today is take whatever cars you need to get as much ridiculous holiday crap as you want." He flared his hands as if design were his passion for the moment, "Head to toe, top to bottom, bells and whistles, stupid sweaters and all. I'll put out some cash for everybody to go to town with. Got it?"

A few spared a questioning glance at Sam, who just nodded, "Yeah, leave no sconce un-garlanded. And get a load of eggnog because he'll drink it all without flinching."  
The room became warmer than any hearth might have gotten. They were faces -- a few distant to him -- celebrating and throwing into excited hugs with one another and if nothing else, they could both smile on at the sentiment.

\----------

Once Sam and Dean gathered an extra layer (as if they didn't have enough by nature), they stepped into the outdoors. The fields and forest patch around the bunker had been covered in a few inches during their time away -- a detail Sam and Dean had taken for granted on their return as just another piece of a mundane world they had traveled abroad in. An angel in a trenchcoat surveyed a young, blonde man piling together snow in his own bundle of coats. It was like a child discovering Playdough -- another advent he had missed in his forcefully rapid growth.

"You're not gonna join him?" Dean spoke before the door fully shut.

Castiel glanced back at the two, "You're home. How did it go?"

"It went fine, Cas. But like Dean said - you just gonna stand here?" 

"It seemed superfluous, but he enjoys it."

"Oh, come on," Dean complained vividly, "Of all people you should at least be telling him how to make snow angels or something."

"Snow angels?"

Before the brothers could explain, Jack snapped from the hypnosis of instinctual fort-building and realized. "Sam! Dean! This is awesome!" The line of older men watched on as their respective communal child rose to his feet and rushed forward, babbling, "I can't feel my hands anymore but this is great. You can build anything out of it." Considering he was wearing gloves, Jack had been at this for some time.

Just like with Maggie, but somehow more personal and deep in their shared core, there was a warmth, life and light they shared in that moment.

"Alright, we'll build stuff." Sam agreed. "But only after we show you how to make snow angels and have a proper snow fight."

"Hey man, building stuff is a totally important part of a snow fight." Dean argued.

In all honesty, Sam and Dean had never made Snow Angels. They had never participated in a snowball fight. They were ideas they had known, alien to them, part of some conceptual celebration young boys-turned-men had watched pass them by on the street or roll on a television screen. For the next few hours, they were boys again. Castiel made terrible snow angels at first, or at least obese ones by the drag of his coat until Dean kidnapped it off of him and threw it into a tree. The cold wouldn't actually bother him, in the end. Sam and Jack proved to be skilled tacticians in the art of snow war when they versed against Castiel and Dean, though Dean spared no cheap shot and may have won on technicality if Jack didn't argue lost points for turning his snowy pranks on Castiel as much as anyone else. Sam and Jack - snow generals and Dean, the snowy assassin, who found his belated comeuppance with Castiel pounding the trunk of a snow-laiden tree and ending up with a small avalanche he had to half-bury out of, and catching a final blow from Sam's expert marksman hand before he fully escaped.

In time, they escaped the cold. The bunker was alive, but still with a touch of alieness they would need to break over the next few days. Before that, though, Dean opted for the four of them to escape to his den. Closing the door of the Deancave, a shuddering Jack was wrapped in a blanket; Dean clicked on the closest movie he had on hand with the lack of holiday flicks; and Castiel stripped off a soggy tie and blazer level. 

"You both seem well." Castiel acknowledged with knowing eyes while Dean ran his tactile thoughts over furniture with roving hands and Sam opted to find something to make himself feel warmer from the drink selection.

"Yeah, Cas. Doing great. Good to see the rest of you are too. Look, I'm sorry if-"

"I know." Castiel cut off. "It's fine, Dean." He glanced back to Jack, who had already begun to drift to sleep once excitement faded in lieu of comfort. Either brother could see the gears turning in his mind, but it didn't seem like Castiel found it worth his while to voice more than, "Once everyone spoke of the holidays, he missed you." And with that, he approached the boy, "I'll go put him to bed and go change." He hoisted Jack against him, careufl not to disturb. "I am... very wet." Conversation beyond that would have to wait as he saw himself out.

"Did it seem like something was on his mind to you?" Dean wondered.

Sam shrugged. "Does Cas know how to holiday?"

Dean bounced back, "Do we even know how to holiday?"

"I dunno," Sam swept in with a pair of beer bottles and dropped into one of the chairs, "You did pretty okay out there for a while."

"You too." Dean tapped bottlenecks across the lane before settling in to consider. "Honestly I guess we're doing more than pretty-okay all around, aren't we?"

"Back to normal." Sam tried a dull chuckle.

"Yeah. And maybe something a little past that." Dean took a swig, holding it as he glanced back at the open door. "Not a bad little family we have, really."

"And we could have worse friends." Sam added.

"Yeah." Dean considered. "Yeah, we could. Merry Christmas, Sammy. Well, almost. Guess we go at it for real tomorrow then."

"Try a few more days." Sam extended. "But I mean, hey. Why not try taking Cas out to explore Christmas lights or something?"

"Cas? Why?"

Sam sighed in frustration, "Nevermind. We all go. Everybody festives the place up tomorrow and we find one of those... light shows or something. Jack'll love it."

Dean nodded, thumbed over the bottle and considered in long quietude before summing up his take-away on the entire day, "Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"No problem."

\-----

**December 23**

Sam and Dean had taken to local thrift shops and outlets -- as local as local got in the middle of Kansas. Lebanon itself hadn't pulled through for much and they found themselves a few cities over. Each had already taken their turns, one to another, shopping with different partners to not steal the element of surprise. 

And yet they found themselves leaning over monitors in the security room of a mall, inspecting the disappearance of Maggie -- who, after insisting Cas stayed put, had vanished for the rest of the day until Castiel called them and informed them of her absence.

It had caught them on their way home with a car full of spoils from a late-night haul, ending with the boys parking in the lot of the offending mall as Dean griped over their luck with holidays. A few hours of observation showed no particularly unusual behavior, just early morning trucks routing in heavy amounts of goods for last minute shoppers, and early-birds at the door hours before official-open. Dean hadn't missed his opportunity to rib Sam over joining the joggers, and Dean's security footage overview asking if he just saw Santa did not pass Sam's detection unscathed. The younger brother was not ready to let his chance to clap back over the Easter Bunny crack pass without, "No, Dean, it just looks like him."

"Bet you she's after those silicon mixing bowls they got Cas on about since-" Dean caught a side eye from the security guard, righting his posture and straightening his blazer. 

"What? Men cook, too."

Sam flatlined his features and stared into Dean, "I don't think that's what he's-"

It would be some time before the boys recognized the natural domesticity of their lives, even in the hunting life of day-to-day. As of yet, when you read, perhaps they still haven't. Even when Sam mentioned calling Cas, who was still elsewhere in the mall, to go ask Santa questions as poor security footage showed him the most likely one to have spied Maggie recently.

"Oh yeah, great. An entire Christmas wish line of kids crashed by a grumpy tree topper." Dean sassed back, only to both stop and look askew at the intentfully confused guard eyeballing them.

The Winchesters' attention was divided by an abrupt snowy break-out of coverage in the loading bay area, clipping out fifteen seconds of coverage before reverting to normal.

\----------

"I need to speak with Santa." Castiel enforced at the front of the line after patiently waiting through a deluge of screaming children.

"You and everybody else, buddy." A dismissive, minimum wage elf worker rolled her eyes.

"No, you don't understand." An initial wrist-grab to the attendant drew tugging recoil, but a quickly flashed badge resolved it enough to move on with pulling aside the man behind the beard.

\----------

Inspecting the bathroom had been strangely uneventful -- save for the smell. "Dude, it smells like a barn," Dean griped. There were no evident signs of struggle, and all Sam found was a small clump of short, coarse hair next to the toilet he tentatively knelt down to inspect.

"Whatever it is, I don't think it's a ghost or a guy." He rose to stand, still thumbing over the small fur swatch, "Not a regular abduction any way about it, unless Santa's kidnapping goats to the mall after herd death."

"...And you... what, consider that a normal abduction?" Dean smirked back, earning an innocent doe-eyed shrug from Sam.

\----

It wasn't the case itself that bore relevance to their story; Dean complaining about going underground again, or the bloody trails that led them into a gruesome underdark of the mall's original basement. Those details weren't really what mattered. 

"Man, just trying to enjoy one good holiday for the kid," was more genuine from the elder brother as their lights led them along crimson streaks through abandoned cement and steel foundations, "before Michael rains on everybody's parade and we can't even do that right. Not enough that the kid dies, we can't even give him a tree? Come on." He complained, but stopped short and glanced back at a shadow in the dim lighting.

The strange bay of a horned beast-man and his sickly yellow eyes before slamming shut the room they had stumbled into; Dean's brief outburst confusing a Kraken and a Krampus was just commentary to his actual frustrations, and the bloodied sacks hanging from ceiling pipes and rafters and the stink of death wrapped in red holiday velvet bags was more commentary on their lives than any details in between. 

Sam's shoulders and Dean's best kicking didn't do much damage to the strong old foundations of the utility room they were in, ornamented in what they could only assume bodies of victims. But the two committed to cutting open bags, whatever they found; some bodies in long decay, others more recent, and a few still breathing but unconscious survivors -- until a familiar face came spilling from a bag to be greeted in a hug by Sam.

Dean's prayer to Castiel sending radio call for their position while the building itself dampened any phone or cell signals; a duct too small for them to get through but Maggie, sent off with Sam's gun in prayer that the silver rounds might do better good than some myth of rhyming and jingling it to death; her reservation and his assurance that he'd be fine with Dean -- to find Castiel.

"I guess it could be worse." Sam tried at irony as they sat waiting on boxes in a room full of Santa's wares. "We could just be stuck in here alone."

"Sam," Dean side-eyed him, "We are stuck in here alone. Unless Kris Kringle's dinner is talking to you, then we might have a problem."

"No, I mean," He glanced at the duct, then a door, "I mean sure, we got pulled into this because someone we know got themselves in trouble, but we're always running to help someone that got themselves in trouble anyway. But right now, you know -- we can stick it out and not be turning inside-out because there's somebody that can actually open that door."

Dean went quiet, processing and nodding though finding a final complaint, "Still don't feel right sending the kid off."

"I mean... yeah? But all she's got in this world is being a hunter now, Dean. All she had over there was surviving. We're never going to feel good about sending anyone off like that but we can feel good about getting them as ready for this world as we can. However we can."

Dean Winchester was stricken quiet again by the simplicity, honesty and conviction in that before eyeing the blood-soaked santa sacks on the ceiling. "Gotta say, this is at least more our style."

Sam cracked a smirk.

Both brothers simultaneously found their feet at the sound of gunshots echoing in nearby halls, slamming and clattering and a few shouts, one of which Dean distinctly recognized as he made it to the locked metal door, "Cas?!"

The onsetting quiet felt like an eternity, even if it was only half a minute before the door cracked open to the angel and young alternate world survivor standing on the other side, the latter wide-eyed, shaken and smattered in blood spray.

Castiel decided to break the awkward silence with a compliment, "She handled Santa nicely."

\----------

Sam and Dean took to their normal positions on the ride home, and Maggie returned to hitching along with Castiel. The four of them ended up connected by phone call on the drive back, regardless.

"No, Cas, we're not going back." Dean sounded frustrated and Sam could only look youthfully amused. Maggie had experienced an existential crisis in realizing that not only had the Krampus assumed she was stealing housewares from JC Penney to vindicate its kidnapping of her, but that she still ultimately left without paying for them. Her voice climbed in the background.

Sam could only laugh, "Maggie, it's fine." That didn't seem to calm her down any, and, "No, no-- Cas, just,"

"Okay look," Dean cut in, "When we get back we'll write JC Penney a note about what happened and send them an apology and a check, alright?" An immediate glance shared between the brothers twisted their brows in warped amusement and overt admission that no such intent was there, fusing eyerolls, laughter and bitchfaces silently. 

"Oh-Okay."

"Just take it easy," Dean brushed off. "And learn how to hold it in."

\----------

As the group strutted back into the bunker, Dean found it almost empty. A variety of shopping parties had dispatched to their own odds and ends, but the bunker itself was full of festive lighting, wreaths and garlands that almost left Dean knocked off-center. "Wow, they really did it up, didn't they?"

Sam chuffed, "Yeah."

"I'll see if anyone else is here." Castiel dismissed himself to investigate the number of heads remaining, though the look shared between both brothers identified no doubt in his search for Jack. Maggie dismissed herself to scrub away the grime of her adventure and ultimately, Sam and Dean wandered into the kitchen, only to walk in on,

"...Mom," Sam breathlessly sounded surprised to find Mary and Bobby settled in over a pair of beers at the table. 

"We heard you kids were trying to do-up the holiday thing," Bobby inserted with a tilty-toast, "And I mean, we got a little longer to make peace and all that, but thought we'd at least say hi. She wouldn't take no for an answer."

"It's good to see you boys." Her eyes drifted from dumbstruck Sam to wordless Dean, who earned an airy smile. "Merry Christmas."

And, to answer an unspoken question, "Jack came back with Jules a bit ago. I think he's wrapping everybody's presents in his room."

"...Alright." Dean patted Sam on the shoulder. "You know what? Let's just do Christmas early tonight. Before Mom heads off again."

Sam turned around. His brief puzzlement faded into agreement quickly. "Yeah. Uh... yeah. Let's just unload everyone's things from the car and see what we can roll out before it gets busy again."

\----------

The night was full of laughter, food, presents and spiked egg-nog. Sam and Dean had decided to get Jack a giant bean bag that had filled up nearly the entire backseat of the Impala, which he spent most of his evening flopped-into and swallowed-by; Castiel's pile for the boy waited for later, considering he'd gone for an entire assortment of things he heard "the kids were into these days". Between Sam, Dean, and Maggie -- on request of Jack -- he received, in order, a pair of certificates to cooking lessons, a fire extinguisher, and some grade-A silicon bowls. Sam couldn't help but poke fun by buying Castiel a set of cowboy gear from hat to spurs, but had apparently found on Ebay, at some point, signed and sealed tickets to the first Zeppelin concert for Dean. A bit late to the concept of a mixtape, Castiel had tried to return the favor -- only, with his limited knowledge of music mostly scoped into the Winchesters', it had come as a CD full of country songs vaguely about cowboy life, but not without a laugh. And Sam had opened...  
"What the hell is this?" he stared at... a pile of hentai.

"Dean said... you might want science fiction full of naked green women."

"I-- dude! I was kidding!" but the older brother was lost, unable to breathe in the aftermath and brought to the verge of tears while trying to wave off and explain Castiel's persistent inability to think outside of what they needed instead of what they wanted. 

_I don't know! Scifi with naked green women!_ He hadn't expected to prank his brother by proxy.

And Sam wouldn't really notice when those comics happened to vanish, either.

It wasn't really the gifts that mattered. It was that, for once, there was unabashed joy in the household -- enough that Castiel had withdrawn, nervously, into the night. It wasn't missed by Jack, or even Sam; Dean had given in to sputtering tales to his mother and the new Bobby, the former just observing in quiet enjoyment at the evident sense of family, adorned in holiday lights; for one night, they didn't look like men who saved the world daily. They were brothers, fathers, and lovers. It was a life she had wanted for them, and for herself; but hadn't expected to find in a hunter abode.

Late in the evening, Sam pulled Dean aside, "Hey," A glance back towards the room. "Cas seemed a little off tonight."

"What are you talking about? He was cutting up out there."

"I mean yeah, but he also --" Sam shook his head, "Look. Let's get him and Jack packed up... find somewhere to stare at lights and ride. I'm not sure what it is... but he's got something on his mind."

"...Alright."

\----------

Sam found Castiel in the kitchen, idly trying on a plastic ring from a cereal box idling on the counter with recent sign of stress eating littered around the sink. The angel fidgeted with the mechanisms and gauged the look on his hand.

"You alright?"

Cas looked back, surprised, "I'm fine." he tried a familiar quick-wash smile. "Just a bit busy for me, I suppose."

"Yeah," Sam admitted, "We're a bit insular, aren't we?" He matched Cas' awkward flash-fire smile before raking his hands down his sides. "Look, I know it's a bit much. Mom and Bobby are heading back to do their thing... and everybody else is probably going to pile back in here soon, so Dean and I wanted to ask you and Jack to come with us and stare at Christmas lights... maybe?"

Castiel stared, confused, "Christmas lights? Why?"

"I dunno," Sam tossed a hand as if to low-pitch a point, "Why not? Why do people make eggnog? We just do it because it's fun."

Cas tipped his head to the side, "Jack would enjoy it."

"Yeah. ...Yeah, I think we all would." Sam approached, slinging an arm over Cas' shoulder, "Come on."

\----

Jack spent most of the drive down Candy Cane Lane with his arms crossed under the rear window, staring at the sights rolling by. Castiel observed him more than the snowy world and lanterns, and Sam and Dean maintained their standard front row seating and set the pace. Even with the threat of an archangel in the horizon -- with the irony of houses littered in similar images right now -- they could have a quiet moment of peace.

"What do you think, Jack?" Dean called from behind the wheel, "Where next?"

"I saw some big lights flashing up the hill."

Sam chuckled and glanced back, "What about you, Cas?"

"Wherever he wants to go."

They rolled some while longer, before Dean abruptly swerved into the curb and threw it in park.

"What's up?" Sam looked confused.

"Feels weird to not even be looking at each other. Come onnnn, this is a family thing." He twisted to look in the back seat. "Let's get out and walk." The lane ahead was a promise of an endless sea of lights, lending great potential ahead.

And so they walked. Not without Dean forcefully chaperone-insisting, _"Nobody get kidnapped!"_

Sam and Dean lingered back a few paces as Castiel kept closer to Jack, who exuberantly sprinted a house ahead on occasion. Hands in their pockets, observing the lights glossing over light falling snow, Dean only had one comment.

"...You know... we done good." Dean caught Sam's questioning look and nodded ahead, "I mean. We're not just sitting here alone waiting for it to come for us." Dean felt Sam's silence pry for more. "That kid, and Cas... they open doors, you know?"

Sam had to bob his head in agreement, face folding in a smile too young for his now-grown face. 

"You know what?" Dean turned to his younger brother in one wide swing, tapping a finger in his direction, "I'm gonna make a new years resolution this year."

"Oh yeah?" Sam challenged, joy flinting in his voice, "What?"

Dean's mouth hung open, finger idling in the air and stuck mid-lean as if he had frozen in place, before resoundingly snapping it down in punctuation, "I don't have a clue yet."  
Color Sam unsurprised, but he nodded towards the other two who had worked about three houses ahead, "How about we start with them?"

"I mean, that's not new."

"And the house."

Dean leveled his stance and looked back. "Yeah, sure."

" _All the way,_ Dean."

"What?"

"Nothing." Sam feigned innocence, and took to quick-clipped long strides to catch up to the angel and not-nephilim ahead.

Dean scratched his head as he was left behind, calling out, "Come on!" after much delay before jogging to try to catch up, "What?"

That was an answer to wait for the new year on.

\---

December 24-  
[14.09]  
...Click.


End file.
